Early skews

We've hit the crucial juncture of two (!) games now and already firm story lines are appearing around the media. Simple hooks are readily available to explain any positive or negative deviation, depending on which direction a team appears to be turning.  Take Southampton; last season they conceded four or more shots on target on 14 separate occasions and yet in only five of those games they conceded twice or more.  In all those matches combined, they ran a pretty much bang on league average 70% save percentage.

This year they've played two matches, conceded four shots on target in each and conceded five goals. Over double the previous rate.  Now what we can't do is make a hard conclusion about where Southampton are as a team after two games, but what we can say is that in the games played they have conceded goals at an extremely high and unsustainable rate; this kind of thing happens regularly in a tiny sample.   Already though i'm seeing the loss of Schneiderlin being called key and analysis homing in on perceived areas of weakness within the team.  The two matches have also featured 15 and 17 shots from Southampton's attack- a very good 25 of which have been inside the box and shows it hasn't been a raft of potshots. It also means the true alarm bells are only humming gently in the far, far distance, almost imperceptible to anyone but the very few people prepared to shrug, make a plea for calm, look at the numbers and say:  "it's early days and it could just be one of those things".

Man City v Chelsea

After the tiresome and miserable events and after-effects around the "doctors" issue, it was refreshing to get back to the football; the two top teams in the land, of course, and for 90 minutes we found a treat of a game that seemed quickly forgotten- at least by the Sky Sports pundits- and replaced by yet another dull narrative surrounding John Terry.

Terry's withdrawal was more interesting when held against the new found defensive generosity that has beset Chelsea so far   Over the last two seasons, Chelsea have conceded eight or more shots on target on only five occasions, it's extremely rare.  Now they've already done just that in both of their games this season.  For all that Aguero remains the most impressive forward in the league, to repeatedly allow him to arrive ball at feet in the centre of the penalty box was not part of the Mourinho plan and we're into the realm of theories: are they worn out? Are they too old? Is it just one of those things?

Now whilst I'm happily giving Southampton a free pass for now, Chelsea's mediocre underlying numbers stretch back over much of 2015.  Rarely convincing, but regularly winning, they put in a string of under-par away performances as last season wound down.  They visited West Ham, Hull and QPR consecutively and contrived to be thoroughly out-shot in each match yet scored five goals from seven shots on target and picked up nine points.  That two of those teams were subsequently relegated and the other showed relegation form throughout the second half of the season makes turning up at Man City and being comprehensively beaten seem a more logical extension than you might otherwise think.

In contrast, Man City who, lest we forget, are a team who many pundits predicted were in decline and would finish fourth or even fifth, have contrived to make a mockery of such half-baked predictions rather quickly.  Stronger in defence than they are often credited, they have now won eight straight games in the league scoring 24 goals, conceding just four and regularly take double the amount of shots of their opponents.  Criticism of the Sterling signing seemed to be more about the nature of the transfer than the talents of Sterling himself and having pruned their attackers by letting Jovetic and Dzeko move on, they now have the extremely attractive options of Nasri and Bony as first change attackers.  With the possible promise of further strengthening to add to what is already the most intelligent attack in the league, there is a distinct possibility that they just may be able to sneak a few more wins.

Bonus content

 

 

Having spent a deal of time really trying not to make snap judgements based on two games it's time to take a small diversion. Over the summer I finally put down on paper a little starter on some research i'd done on footedness in shooting and as a further hors d'oeuvre to a meal that admittedly may never be served, we have this:

The sample is sized as such as it represents an average of six players per team, or realistically a starting midfield and forward line and there was a requirement of a certain volume of shots to ascertain which foot preference a player had.  In this instance I used a 60% cut-off as a definition: a player that took 60% or more of their footed shots with a certain foot was deemed to favour that foot, and in between were deemed two-footed.  This gave 70% of players as right footed, 8% as two footed and 22% as left footed.

What can we take away here?

Well, it seems that left footed shooters are more predominantly left footed than their right footed counterparts are right footed.  They take 77% of all shots with their left foot compared to 68% for right footers.  Left footers also make fewer headers than both two footed players and right footers.  In fact, two footed players appear to show greater versatility with regard headed attempts too.

That left footers may favour their dominant foot to a greater degree seems to chime with recollections of significantly one-footed players.  Erik Lamela's rabona is just one extreme example.  Historically, fans have regularly eulogised about the qualities of left footers- "he's got a wand of a left foot"- to a degree that seems to exceed that of the far more common right footer.  Maybe that's a partial comment on scarcity but to think of special dribblers such as Barnes, Giggs, Maradona and Messi is to evoke a thrilling aspect of the game.

Another type of left footer can also find favour: the "Hammer" left foot of Branco, Stuart Pearce, Roberto Carlos or Christian Ziege through to more modern players like Riise, Kolorov, Podolski or Bale.  All players extremely and vividly biased towards their stronger foot.  Maybe this is a function of position? The left footer is more obviously sent to his wing as a balance- although less so in the era of inverse wingers- and again do we recall due to uniqueness?

Anyway, that's just a few thoughts, i'm sure people have many more and I'll return to this in future.

Obligatory Tottenham bit

I noted last week that the seemingly improved defensive performance against Man Utd was likely to be as much about how Man Utd structure their game as to a genuine example of problem solving and in a fairly grim fashion, Tottenham proceeded to concede 16 shots at home to Stoke in the course of snatching a draw from the clutches of victory.  An hour of the game was good: solid play and a couple of goals but much like this fixture last year, Stoke came on stronger as the game wore on and Tottenham visibly shrank.  By the finish Tottenham were so devoid of control and nous that you'd have found fresher ideas in a new episode of the Simpsons and the lack of a Schweinsteiger figure to come on and steady the ship, much like er... Schweinsteiger had done for Utd the previous evening, was telling.

This is an inexperienced side, and it really showed here.  The exciting but also young Clinton N'Jie has arrived and will at least provide some sorely needed forward options and further deals may need to be made.   A visit to the Mahrez inspired Leicester beckons.

Thanks for reading!

______________

Follow me on Twitter:  @jair1970

I had been champing at the bit to write about Tim Sherwood but after this last weekend, it feels a little more like a necessary procedure akin to having root canal treatment. Damn it though I'm an analyst, to some at least, and come hell or high water one must continue. Sherwood, despite widespread unpopularity amongst Tottenham fans dismissive of his win percentage, showed humility and decency in his special one-on-one Match of the Day interview.  With a glint in his eye joined merrily by the tiniest yet most obvious smirk he may well have provoked a little ire but he brings a certain appeal that if not quite box office is certainly worthy of soap opera. He has returned to our lives in the guise of Aston Villa manager and has quickly posted a 37% win percentage- an instant improvement on the 20% Paul Lambert accrued thanks to an aversion to creativity and goalscoring. He's back, he's got his striker scoring again and as such Goal of the Month competitions have resumed at Villa Park, but what's under the hood for our Tim? Firstly, Lambert presided over one of the most miserable Premier League seasons in recent memory. A sub-five percent conversion rate meant that a proverbial grandmother could have come in and improved the situation.  An ideal gig for a confident and confidence-orientated manager?  For sure. The most relevant thing about Villa under Sherwood to me is that their shooting numbers are solidly par.  They are a roughly 50% team under his tutelage and it holds across a variety of other numbers including possession (49%), Finishing/PDO (1.02), total conversion (+0.01) and even goals for / against (1.5:1.4).  How he is generating these numbers is interesting given that as a Tottenham fan, I have some insight as to how Tim Sherwood sets up his teams and how he attempts to generate results.  And in this early analysis, there are some notable similarities to his Tottenham tenure.  Samples are small, twenty-two games and eight but already we can pull specific likenesses: A few choice numbers there but revealing, in particular when held up against league averages as shown.  Each of these statistics I feel are a reasonable proxy for how Tim Sherwood sets up his teams and the way he approaches football matches.  We can see that in both his jobs the conversion rates for and against have been high, the rate of shots created and allowed that are on target is extremely high and the goal totals in games have clearly exceeded league averages.  To those of us who watched the back end of Tottenham's 2013-14 season, none of these points will come as a surprise. Sherwood regularly entrusted 19 year old Nabil Bentaleb to a nominal defensive midfield role.  Alone.  Meanwhile five more attack minded players endeavoured to wreak havoc ahead.  Some of these set-ups appeared naïve, or even ill conceived, and they provided mixed results.  So much so that when combined with an over willingness to share in the media, his departure was not mourned widely.  Sherwood's methods appeared to sacrifice control at the altar of chance and his gung ho attitude was too nerve-wracking for supporters more recently acquainted with the prescriptive stylings of Villas Boas.  He has found a similar scenario at Villa and seemingly approached it the same way. Paul Lambert's latter period was characterised by some extremely cautious, even negative, ball retention and Villa often played as if they feared losing.  This is no longer the case.  The reality of a 3-3 draw at home to QPR as Redknapp protégés slug things out shows where the football has headed for Villa. And weirdly, this might not be a bad thing.  Whereas Sherwood's methods ultimately fell short of requirements at Tottenham, they could well be exactly what is needed for a club battling relegation.  “You win some, you lose some” is a hell of a strong maxim for a team that hasn't been winning many at all and deserved to win fewer.  His current early record of 3-1-4 will do them just fine if maintained and suggests that “having a go” is at least, a short term fix.   It isn't particularly technical, it might end in tears but Sherwood's magic is simple: pump up your chest, glue your heart to your sleeve and get out there and play like you're worth it. So welcome back, Tim. Stat Shorts 1. Chelsea are limping but what does it matter? Since trouncing Swansea 5-0, Chelsea's form has been decidedly less impressive.  It will likely mean nothing as Arsenal and Man Utd have taken too long to flourish but with little impact from score effects, to have been outshot by a combined 52(17) to 29(7) in their last three away games against West Ham, Hull and QPR is head-scratchingly non-creditworthy.  Taking all nine points from those fixtures means “who cares?” and the trophy engraving has likely been scheduled. 2. Newcastle are phoning it in It happened last year, it's happening again: Christmas lasts four or five months in Newcastle as regular donations of three points are handed out to all and sundry. I mean, they lost to Sunderland last week and that's a team i'm sorely tempted to bestow with a “least deserving” award, so bad they've been. Competition winner John Carver has had a tough run of fixtures and has been scalded by a horrible opposition conversion rate: Newcastle are conceding 16% of shots faced compared to scoring 8% of their own.  This can't last forever but we saw the same utterly banal form the same time last year and a repeat was foretold by one of our sage analysts back at the end of January: https://twitter.com/colinttrainor/status/561450632557891584 @Objectivefooty has also come up with a novel solution: https://twitter.com/ObjectiveFooty/status/587749219710193664 Maybe I'm being harsh? In isolation I'd agree but Newcastle are coasting once more and the blueprint does not include this kind of form early season, a potential situation which will surely require remedy over the summer. Won't it? 3. Pulisball wobbles We know Pulis puts up sub-par numbers.  We know Pulis has defined inflexible methods that tend towards overachieving against them.  What we don't know is what's going wrong at West Brom that has led his team to concede seven goals in two games against Leicester and QPR.  He's still picked up points at the same rate as Sherwood (1.25 a game) but what he hasn't got coming any time soon is fixtures as nominally winnable as those last two. They may be able to beat Newcastle, but beyond that none of their remaining fixtures look winnable and one wonders just how much psychological damage was inflicted by a frenzied Man City that day.  That's not stats, I hear you cry, and I know so here's a chart: Sure, the City game ruined this, but it was heading for the rubbish tip anyway.  Tough times at the Hawthorns. Obligatory Tottenham Exhaustion “You see, them lads down at Tottenham are young. And they've played a lot of games and worked hard all season. Lots of training, lots of games and now they're knackered. And it shows. Danny Rose is their best player at the moment, Danny Rose!  Their attack has given up and even the fans are questioning Pochettino.  Is he up to the job?  Well?  Is he?  We just don't know.  He keeps picking the wrong players.  Week by week players disappear then return magically for a game or two then get dropped.  Fazio rose from the ashes this week and got blamed for the goal.  But he's barely played in weeks.  Paulinho gets slated every time he gets near the pitch but he's not match fit.  It's a nightmare.  Half the team are gonna get shipped on in the summer and a few of the rest probably aren't up to it.  You could drive a train through our defence at times, so easy is it for the opposition! At least we've got Villa at home this weekend though, be good to turn over Sherwood.  Last thing we need to see is his grinning mug...”   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   Thanks for reading!   Find me on twitter here: @jair1970

I buy the Times on occasion (not for political reasons, or an endorsement of Rupert Murdoch's empire: I like some of the puzzles) and this Thursday there was an interesting small analysis piece on Daniel Sturridge written by Rory Smith.  What drew my attention was the general intention of the article to depict Sturridge as being “short of confidence”.  It went on to criticise Sturridge's efforts against Blackburn citing amongst other things “poor choices”, being “unsure of his instincts” (?) and that his “energy [was] wayward and incoherent.”(??).   Nope, me neither.

He also “looked a shadow of the prolific goalscorer who terrorised defenses last season.” Okay, maybe he didn't have his best game?  What else? “The less confidence Sturridge has, the more he seems to retreat into cockiness” and “[he] takes too many touches, slipping the ball under his feet, throwing dummies and feints, a desperate dance designed, perhaps [!], to convince him[self] of his own qualities.” This latter section is a knowingly counter-intuitive argument and one which surely doesn't hold firm.  Even without getting into the stats (we will) Sturridge has never seemed a man needing a shot of confidence to effect positive endeavour.

What does Daniel Sturridge do?

I'm pretty happy to declare that Daniel Sturridge is two things:

1. An elite level striker

2. Injury prone

The elite level striker angle is easy to prove: his entire career he's consistently averaged four or five shots a game and mapping back even through his “kid learning the ropes” stages he averages over 0.6 goals per game.  He's a pure striker, a darn good one and has always been so.  More fool Chelsea for selling him when they did.  But... His injury record stinks.  He's been involved in professional football since a young age and has participated in seven seasons. He was back-up or a rotational player in the early years but still, the guy is 25 years old and has never played more than 2/3 of a season.

2014-15

So, a familiar storyline of injury and absence and he reaches mid-April with only 750 league minutes to his name.  He “struggles to recapture top form” and has “only scored four goals since returning from several injuries.” This seems like a fair argument if you blindly consider four to be a small number but if we pull up some shot and goal numbers, we can see that perceived problems may well be smaller than is being suggested: I've highlighted two sections particularly to make the point. With data stretching over nearly 8000 minutes from 2009 to 2015 we have as near as we can get to career rates and despite it being a small sample in 2015 (he has only played 480 league minutes since returning from many months injured) we can also take a look at what he's doing since coming back into the team.  I have also put in this season's cumulative rate and his entire Liverpool career by way of contrast.

What can we see?

• His career shot rate is 4.38, his Liverpool rate is similar and he's recently above that level.
• Whilst he is lacking in recent six yard box activity (“poaching”) his rate of penalty area shots to out of box shots has increased over time, and is currently high.
• His on target rate is incredibly consistent across his whole career.
• He has always and continues to takes all kinds of shot at similar rates (left foot, right, header).
• His Key Pass rate is consistent throughout.
• His Liverpool conversion rate is very high overall but has dropped back this season. Multiple studies have shown that conversion rates have poor levels of repeatability so change here cannot be solely attributed to anything apart from random variation.  He had been running extremely hot in this measure over the season and a half he'd been at Liverpool, much like Giroud, Costa or Kane are this season and a cooling off is not significant in itself.
• His goal rate is a fraction beneath his career rate and 0.20 goals per 90 below his very high overall Liverpool rate.

Alright so; shots wise, he's just dandy, goal-wise he's a little off.  Well, again I can point to the small sample and suggest there is little cause for concern. Given the time he has been on the pitch, one or two more goals would have covered the conversion and goal per 90 deficits shown.  That's it.  If you are to posit that Daniel Sturridge is out of form or “short of confidence” then effectively you are suggesting that he has reached this negative mindset via the method of missing one or two goal scoring chances. And if I want to give Sturridge a break I really could.  I can identify three simple factors which could have impacted on his production in 2015:

1. He is playing in an unfamiliar formation (3-4-3), adaptation could take time.

2. He has just returned from a series of injuries and so may need time to gain full match sharpness.

3. He is no longer playing alongside one of the most devastating attacking players in the world, the dervish-like Luis Suarez.

Despite these factors, his personal contribution to Liverpool when in the team is solid in relation to his career and once more consistent.  I don't see self-concern in Daniel Sturridge's performances and I suspect that over time it will be seen that it was an extremely strange deduction to make.  The answer to the question posed in the title is simple: if fit, not a lot.   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading!

Find me on Twitter: @jair1970

Mauricio Pochettino has had a tricky start to his Tottenham tenure but in his attack, two players have come to the fore: Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane.  Both are now seen as pivotal to Tottenham's attacking schemes but their routes to becoming regular starters at Tottenham have been very different and each has overcome apparent indifference from certain coaches to secure their spots in the team.  But how effective are they?  Does their hype match their achievement?  Let's find out.

Neither player featured heavily under Villas Boas, a coach who favoured physicality and experience over guile and youth but it was Eriksen's performance in a 0-1 defeat against Newcastle last season that stood out on the numbers and made him a player to watch; a performance so noteworthy that it was dissected by Ted here on Statsbomb.  Both Kane and Eriksen featured far more often under Tim Sherwood, Eriksen to such an extent that he won the club's Player of the Season award despite hardly featuring during the early months.  Kane featured later on.  Beyond the point  Sherwood had been told he would be leaving he seemingly ignored status and picked teams featuring players he liked.  500 minutes of Premier League game-time was valuable experience for Kane and he showed good form, notable for two encouraging aspects: shot volume and goals.

Another head coach offered new challenges and Pochettino seemingly took to Eriksen quicker than he did Kane; he's the only outfielder to start every league match this season.  Kane's route to the first team this season has been more unorthodox. Initially deployed in Europe & seemingly behind Adebayor and maybe Soldado in the league squad, two obvious factors have fast-tracked his step up: the annual disappearance of Adebayor and yet again, goals. We reach 2015 with Kane & Eriksen firmly established as Tottenham's most effective attackers (a quick check over at the contributions at 'Football in the Clouds' confirms this) but how are their games represented within the statistics? Let's see.

Kane comes out shooting

Those 500 minutes at the back-end of 2013-14 were the first chance Kane had to play Premier League football on a regular basis and within them he showed great promise.  An ability to find shooting positions was matched by a willingness to shoot and he averaged 5 shots per 90 minutes.  This was enough for numbers watchers to raise an eyebrow in his direction as 5 shot a game guys are scarce, but it came with a caveat: 500 minutes is a small sample.  We can see exactly how a high shot average is appealing by looking at this chart that covers the last 4 years of the Premier League:

 

 

A list of the great, good and Mario Balotelli. (As an aside, this chart shows exactly how good Aguero has been this current season. He's splitting Messi and Ronaldo with a rate this high.)  So Kane piqued interest but there were easy criticisms that could be made, criticisms that are also often laid at Balotelli.  He was taking a lot of shots but his decision making wasn't always good: a high proportion of his shots were being blocked and there were occasions where shots on target were tame and easy for the keeper to pick up.  The willingness was encouraging and three goals (two headers and a right foot shot) was a very fair return for a still young player new to the league.  It was also enough for the club and its support to accept that he'd be an option as part of the 2014-15 striking corps, a status many fans had been sceptical he would ever achieve.

Kane: from the Europa League to Premier League

(We can be justifiably wary when discussing Kane in that he is still a young player and any analysis is shadowed by small samples, however, trends are perceptible.)

It's easy to forget that Kane started the season down the pecking order at Tottenham. Coach Pochettino, an advocate of a versatile forward in his 4-2-3-1, saw Adebayor as his best option, an understandable decision based on ability, reputation and team ethic. Yeah I know, team ethic? I contend that Adebayor's languid style conceals an intelligent, team-orientated on pitch persona, it's just his ability to be difficult off-pitch has often caused problems and absences.  Aptly, his semi-mysterious omission from the team in early November was the catalyst to elevate Kane to league starter, a position he hasn't looked like relinquishing.

Having scored regularly when used in European and cup fixtures, Kane had an opportunity to show that his late 2013-14 flourish was no one-off.  Two months and 8 goals later fans now fear having to cope without him; his transformation from peripheral squad striker to starter is complete. But how has he improved? Which parts of his game have evolved over time and what can we see in his raw numbers?

 

 

The first issue to look at is a reduction in his shot totals.  Pitching in at a shade over 3.6 per 90 is still pretty decent but it's noticeably down on his prior total.  So where have the extra shots gone? The simple answer implies better decision making:

 

 

My earlier criticism was that in 2013-14 a high percentage of his shots were either blocked or weakly on target.  A reduction in both these totals suggests the possibility that these may well be areas that he's been working to improve.  Indeed, despite the reduction in shot totals, his goal rate has continued at a similar and impressive level.

The other noticeable difference is an increase in dribbling.  Whilst the textbook example is his first goal against Chelsea, in which he picked up the ball on the left flank, headed infield and fired home, my personal favourite 'Kane dribbling moment' is this, from the home game against Man Utd:

 

 

It also reflects an aspect of Kane's game that didn't register at all last season: creative passing.  I have no idea how he sees this pass to Mason (he got a shout?), let alone executes it with such precision.  Backing this piece of play up, we now have evidence of crossing and through balls, neither of which figured when he was playing in Tim Sherwood's more orthodox 2 striker system.   Pochettino has required him to become more versatile and it shows.  Alongside this, but harder to represent statistically, his ability to hold the ball up and position himself effectively to shield the ball has visibly strengthened over time.  Kane is a consistently smart player.

The Lambert Blueprint

During a season and a half under Pochettino, Rickie Lambert scored 15 non-penalty goals but more than that expressed appreciation towards his coach for the way he had educated him:

“(...) each manager that came in improved me massively and especially Mauricio. He taught me how to be a different kind of player and I think that’s helping now.

“(...) He taught me how to be the lone striker and the thing that I was doing wrong most was the fact I thought I had to show for everyone on the pitch.

“Whoever had the ball, I felt I had to run over and show for the ball, get on the ball. He was saying ‘take your time’ and ‘wait until the right people have got on to the ball’ like Adam Lallana and others further up the pitch. After that, I had an understanding of how to play that position a lot better.” Harry Kane is known to be an enthusiastic trainer and seems committed to improvement and similarities with Lambert are clear: neither is blessed with pace but both have good footballing intelligence and have now thrived in Pochettino teams.  During his tenure at Tottenham, Pochettino has been demonstrably patient.  None of the summer signings became regular starters immediately and players that returned back late from World Cup duty were slowly reintroduced to the team.  Similarly, one could posit that the sporadic use of Kane in the early months was a deliberate attempt to give him time to learn a role he would be required to play; the lone front man in a 4-2-3-1.  In starting initially with Adebayor, Pochettino not only deferred to seniority and known ability but experience in the role.  It bought Kane some time, he gained experience of the role in Europe, and enabled him to hit the ground running when he finally made the league team.

So are there similarities between what Lambert and Kane have brought to each team?

 

 

Anyone would think they've been coached to play the same role!  Beyond the similarities amongst these shooting numbers (a rough 'n ready correlation puts the similarity here at 96%), Kane has a higher rate of dribbles and is scoring at twice the rate (0.64 per 90 to 0.32 per 90) whereas Lambert was more active in the air and in creative passing.  Still, it appears that Pochettino may have found his 'Lambert'.

Versatility

Kane has also played around a third of his minutes in a more withdrawn attacking midfield role, primarily to accommodate Roberto Soldado, but has generally looked most effective in a forward role.  Whilst his default move may be to drift from the left to create a shot on his right foot, it's notable that he takes all types of shots and scores all types of goals.  This season he has taken 55% of his shots with his right foot and split the rest evenly between his head and his left.  Having turned these efforts into 4 right footed goals, 2 left and 2 headers shows confidence and adaptability.  In this regard he resembles Edin Dzeko, a more pure striker, but also one who year after year consistently finds and takes all types of chances.

Alongside his successful integration into the Tottenham first team, it should be noted that Harry Kane is a highly effective 'pro'.  Some players lack the ability to absorb the nuances within the game that might gain advantages for their team; Kane has no such worries.  This trait was highlighted initially with his famed legal time-wasting up at Old Trafford last year, only technically offside when touching the ball he launched it high into the stands, the implication here was clear: the kid knows the rules.  More recent examples include an ability to draw fouls, an ability to draw penalties convincingly and excellent 'lastminutebythecornerflag' work.  And I've not even touched on the statistically hard to quantify quality of his movement and ability to find gaps and spaces; the pros and pundits always pick up on that!  Oh, and he's the size of a house now, which is a new thing too.

Harry Kane's early promise has morphed into some realisation of potential and with a game not reliant on athletic speed, his immediate and long-term future should be rewarding.

Eriksen: metronome

How a player is affected by the tactical variations of their coach cannot be underestimated when looking at performance. In a little over 18 months at Tottenham, Christian Eriksen has had 3 coaches and been required to perform a number of roles based on a single theme: 'attacking midfielder'. That he has come to the fore and stayed relevant is testament to his natural ability and willingness to work for his place. Anyone with any doubts of the Dane's ability need look no further than the 'Crossbar Challenge' recorded some months back as a curio for the official Tottenham site.  It's really well worth seeing:

 

Spurs Crossbar Challenge - Christian Eriksen Masterclass!

 

Under Villas Boas, Eriksen on completed 90 minutes in the league once, the aforementioned game against Newcastle. He was then injured and left out of Villas Boas final game, so was never given an early opportunity to settle.  What promise he'd shown was seized upon by Tim Sherwood, who'd reportedly lobbied for his signing, and he spent much of the rest of the season drifting in from the left to good effect in Sherwood's lopsided 4-4-2.  Cue 2014-15, he's started every game and played often but not exclusively in the centre of the 3 in Pochettino's 4-2-3-1.  So: plenty of variation, his relative twofootedness allowing him to be moved around the team, and no small amount of success.  He spent the entirety of 2014 averaging around 0.4 non-penalty goals per 90, an enviable total for an attacking midfielder.  But how else does he contribute?

 

 

The most obvious thing to take from this is his consistency. Despite different roles, little in his game has varied over 18 months and he repeatedly hits a shot contribution of over 5 per 90:

 

This makes him a fixture in the top 20 in the league in this metric, Tottenham's chief contributor and one of the higher rated creative types. In fact, he's managing to maintain his rate despite the fact that Tottenham are recording an average of 2 shots fewer per game this season compared to last.  His influence is increasing and he deserves to be mentioned in a similar breath to other feted creators such as Silva, Di Maria, Fabregas, Nasri, Hazard and Ozil.

He also possesses a refreshingly small on-pitch ego.  Close attention to his game shows a true team man who contrarily appears uncomfortable with the nature of football stardom: he has no patented goal celebration and often looks bewildered when scoring.  He generally makes very good decisions and this can sometimes make it appear that he isn't attempting to dominate.  This lack of obvious externalised tenacity can frustrate but it misses his intelligence, he continually hits his marks and has this season found himself a repeated match winner.

This year and beyond...

In yet another season of rebuilding and transition, Tottenham have found themselves with two reliable and young attacking talents.  With other players such as Chadli enjoying their on-pitch roles in the Pochettino regime and the tantalising promise held by Lamela, Tottenham's creative core has high potential.  Issues remain in central midfield, an overpopulated but under-par position and striking depth is a work in progress with aging, huge earners under-performing (Soldado) or disappearing (Adebayor).  The defence is also proving more porous than is ideal but has suffered from an inability to get a regular line-up in front of the often busy Lloris.

Most reassuring for the longer term is the age of a large portion of the squad:

Bentaleb (20)

Kane, Dier, Davies (21)

Lamela, Eriksen (22)

Mason, Townsend (23)

Walker, Rose (24)

Chadli (25)

All these players are entering their best years and are well established squad members.  The centre back duo of Fazio (27) and Vertonghen (27) also have some time left and Lloris (28) despite the repeated fears of fans, appears well settled.

Long term, whether this base will be strong enough to challenge for the top 4 is likely to depend on how many of the creative talents are retained and progress as hoped.  The league gets no easier but in an era of Financial Fair Play, Tottenham appear to have a solid foundation on which to build upon. It is to be hoped that Harry Kane and Christian Eriksen will be key in this process.

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I've been monitoring Southampton's underlying numbers this year and I was disappointed that they failed to annihilate Villa as any boost from that game would have sugar-coated their already historically impressive totals.  As it is, it's possible to show that they have had a start to the season that ranks very high in the pantheon of 'Great Starts to the Season' as recorded in the 'Enlightened Stat Era' (2009-now).  This era is defined as such because it covers the public availability of shooting numbers that can be built into metrics that are highly insightful & which can also be toyed with to create weird mini-stats that show that what Southampton have done is indeed extraordinary.

Factor in the pre-season predictions of demise (guilty!), the wholesale personnel changes & the size of the club when compared against other teams that have made outstanding & blistering starts and their achievement gathers even more credence.

But what achievement? Good point.  Starting a season well has little meaning unless it can translate into a tangible return at the end of a season so what chance they retain their position in the upper echelon of the league & usurp a more established visitor to the top 4?

Of course the key point against what they have achieved so far is their schedule which has meant they have avoided all but Liverpool & Tottenham of last season's top 7.  They lost to both.

For this article the seasons referenced above have been used (09-14) and that denotes 120 team starts of 12 games.

Total Shot Ratio (TSR)

• Southampton rank 9th/120 with 63%
• 7 of the top 9 went on to finish in the top 4 that season

Shot on Target Ratio (SoTR), SoT+/- and Goal Ratio

• 2nd/120 SoTR with 72%
• Of all these extra metrics, this (and the related 'Shots on Target +/-') are most predictive towards final points & position.  After 12 games it is comparative in predictive power to 'Goals For' and only behind 'Wins' & 'Goal Difference'

We can see how this impressive SoTR has translated into an equally impressive goal % & that historically, it stands very highly:

 

 

Similarly the shots on target +/- figure is historically high:

 

 

Of the teams on this chart, only Liverpool 09/10 did not finish top 4.  We can also see here that despite varying media perceptions of Man City & Chelsea this year, they rate identically on this metric.

Shots, goals against & saves

Whilst Southampton's goals total is impressive, to some degree it has been enhanced the the 8-0 romp against Sunderland.  There is some mileage here though; teams averaging 2.0 goals per game or better at this point have qualified for the top 4 on  the last 15/18 occasions.  Their shots for totals are no better than average; indeed they rate only 8th in the league here.  Where they really impress is at the other end of the pitch.  Defensively they are putting up extraordinary numbers, something that can be highlighted by this little nugget; they have conceded 4 shots on target in their last 5 games.

• Shots against: 1st/120 (Arsenal 2014/15 also score extremely well here)
• Shots on target against: 1st/120

And these figures are powering this:

• Goals against: 2nd/120
• Saves (low): 2nd/120

Save %

Not only are they effective at minimising opposition efforts, they've also been good at repelling those that do get through.  Their save percentage is not historically significant, but nonetheless leads the league this year.

Shooting Accuracy

Or, the percentage of shots on target in relation to shots.

• For: 9th/120 (Swansea & Chelsea are also historically high)
• Against: 6th/120 (Stoke are 1st/120 here)

Both solid numbers, but the key component here is the relationship between the two and is arguably Southampton's most impressive/least sustainable stat.  This cake can be cut a few ways, but I've just represented the difference between the raw percentages:

 

 

To score 13% where the previous high is about 10% is a noticable outlier & whilst the stat isn't particularly predictive, it can reasonably be assumed that the ability of Southampton to restrict their opposition's shooting accuracy in relation to their own will reduce as the season progresses.  Indeed, a seasonal high for this figure is only 8%.  Somewhere along the line 5 points will most likely disappear.

As we can also see, Swansea, Chelsea & Everton are all scoring above seasonal expected levels here.

Conversion rates

Simple shots to goals percentages:

• For: 8th/120 (Swansea, Palace (!) & Chelsea also riding high)
• Against: 2nd/120
• +/-: 2nd/120

There are 8 percentage points difference between the for and against totals (14% & 6%).  In the course of the sample, the only teams to break 6 percentage points over an entire season are three Alex Ferguson teams & Man Utd & Man City occupy 8/9 slots above 5 percentage points.  The other team is Brendan Rodgers' Suarez fuelled 2013-14 squad.  Overall, these numbers appear to lack league-wide predictive quality but seem to represent the very good and the very bad at their extremities. Could this Southampton team join this list of good & great teams?

The near future

...is tricky, but there is some hope that Southampton can retain their high position in the short to medium term:

 

 

They have been particularly good at home, winning 5/6 and conceding only one goal & five of their 'tough' matches are at home. Throw in winnable matches at Burnley and Palace & there's can be a genuine expectation that whilst their impressive numbers will almost certainly regress somewhat, there is clear scope to continue to pick up a good points return.   There are some precedents that suggest that what they have already done stands them in excellent stead towards the top 4:

• The last 25 teams with +10 goal difference after 12 games finished the season in the Top 4. Portsmouth failed in '07-08. Southampton are currently +18.
• The last time a team in Top 3 after 12 games finished out of the top 4 was 2007/8.
• The top 16/17 Goal Ratio teams after 12 games finished 4th or above.  Southampton rank 2nd here & the only team not to finish top 4 was... Southampton 2013-14. 
• 8 wins after 12 games? 9/9 top 4.

Problems & Top 4?

Southampton lack a deep squad and have been relatively fortunate with injuries thus far.  A series of quick games against tough opposition may well test their player resources and with key contributors throughout the first team, any succession of injuries will noticeably weaken them.

A significant proportion of their current success has centred around their defensive abilities & the Villa match was the first in which they committed a defensive error that led to a goal; and a loss of two points.  We can praise Koeman for instilling an effective defensive strategy & mindset thus far but having spent very little time in a losing position, their tenacity when under pressure has rarely been tested.  This will surely change as we go through December.

They have twice scored as a result of instantly returning terrible goalkeeper clearances.  This kind of goal is scarce & that they've benefited twice is a subtle indicator of how their season has progressed with a degree of charm.  Similarly, the generosity shown by Sunderland's defence has provided a notable massage to their attacking figures, some of which are not historically impressive.  Removed from analysis, their goals for is a much less impressive 1.3 per game and you lose 4 points from conversion.  Suddenly: not so impressive.

Despite these issues, I personally feel that it's worth taking a positive view of what has been achieved.  The betting markets give them around a 2/1 chance of qualifying for the top 4 and that, as I think I've shown, is not ungenerous.  Indeed anyone who has availed themselves of higher odds can be well pleased with their current position.

One of the goals of sport analytics is to convey rich information about a player or team in a single number or statistic. In football one of the main areas of interest is how much a player contributes to scoring goals, something which can be difficult to quantify given the rarity and stochastic nature of goals. I decided to look into developing a single statistic that can be used to compare relative contributions to chance or goal creation. Taking a cue from sabermetrics and baseball analytics, I’ve developed a series of comparative statistics for attacking contributions in soccer called “Chances Created”.

Baseball Model

One of the most influential statistics developed by Bill James, the father of sabermetrics, is called “Runs Created” (RC). RC was a response to baseball’s obsession with the RBI or run-batted-in which is very context and team specific often giving a skewed view of how much a player actually contributes to his team’s offence. RC in its most basic form looks at a players contribution by multiplying the player’s on-base-percentage by their total bases. The simplest test for RC was to see if a team’s RC total roughly added up to their total runs scored and the results were encouraging with a margin of error of approximately 5%.

Since the inception of RC there have been two major advancements. The first which was given the name “Runs Created Plus” (RC+) normalizes the average player’s value to 100, so a RC+ of 115 means that the player contributes 15% more runs than the average player. The second major change was weighting the statistic for several other quantifiable factors, hence “Weighted Runs Created Plus” (wRC+).

In developing a Chances Created statistic I took this approach so there are three separate statistics: Chances Created (CC), Chances Created Plus (CC+), and Weighted Chances Created Plus (wCC+). The goal of a statistic like this is the same as in baseball, find a metric that gives a better indication of a players contribution to the attack than just goals and assists which are clouded by lots of noise.

Chances Created

A chance in football corresponds to a shot, whether on target or not. There are two actions which directly create a chance, a shot and a pass that leads directly to a shot (a key pass). So at its core CC is just an accumulation of shots and key passes, but adjusted for playing time to shots and key passes per 90 minutes.

The next step is to create a statistic that is normalized so that the average is 100. The problem with this is determining what the average player is in terms of chance creation. In baseball, every player has the same opportunity to bat whereas in soccer different players in different positions are expected to contribute different outputs offensively. So instead of normalizing for a non-existent, completely average player I divided players into four positions: goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and forward. Obviously there are a lot of debates about what these positions actually mean and there are players that play in different positions throughout the season. In order to keep as much objectivity as possible I’ve just used the players' positions that they are assigned by the Premier League’s official fantasy league. Not a perfect solution, but as good a benchmark as I could think of.

In creating the average player I also think it is important to only include players who played a significant role in the season, not those who only play bit-part roles. Thus I’ve only included players who have played at least half of their teams games in the season (which in the Premier League is 19).

Finally, I wanted to weight the chances created statistic to account for shot quality. We know that not all shots and not all chances are created equally, so the chances created statistic should also reflect the quality of these chances created. I decide to weight the statistic by assist rate and scoring rate which are essentially the percentage of key passes that lead to goals and the percentage of shots that lead to goals. Since I’m using an entire season’s worth of data the sample size is large enough that these percentages should align relatively closely with the percentages if I had used expected goals, or in other words the sample size should be large enough to drown out any significant noise that exists in the weights. For example if a player takes a lot of shots from poor positions their CC+ will be high, but their scoring rate will be low so their wCC+ will be lower accordingly.

    

Testing the Statistic

I think there are three key features that a statistic should have in order to be relevant and useful, it should have some explanatory capability, it should be repeatable and it should be simple to understand.

Explanatory: If the teams that have players with the highest CC, CC+ and wCC+ don’t create the highest number of goals then the statistic is useless since it is not connected to anything tangible that teams are trying to accomplish.

There are high r^2 values between the number of goals a team scores in a year and the average of their players’ CC+ and wCC+. The table below summarizes the r^2 values in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 Premier League seasons between the statistics and team goals scored. As the tables show wCC+ has more explanatory power than CC+ as we would expect.

Interestingly if we look at defenders, midfielders and forwards on each team individually as well as the total average and run a regression on the total number of goals the team scored the individual position specific values are not statistically significant, so everything is captured by the total team average. In simpler terms, if a team’s forwards have a higher wCC+ than their midfielders it doesn’t mean they will score more goals, it is the team average of all positions that matter.

Repeatability: The statistic must have some predictive value. Therefore there must be some trend in the statistic from season to season so that a player’s CC, CC+ or wCC+ has some predictive power for their output in the following season.

Looking at the 2012-13 and 2013-14 Premier League season the r^2 value between wCC+ from one season to the next is 0.78. The scatter plot below shows the tight season to season trend in wCC+.

Simplicity: CC+ and wCC+ are designed to be as simple as possible in compare players. The benchmark of 100 for the average player at each position makes it instantly clear whether a player is above or below average in terms of offensive contribution. This is a statistic that is easy to read and even without the background on the methodology is easy to understand conceptually.

wCC+ Premier League Leaderboards

2012-13 Premier League Defenders

2012-13 Premier League Midfielders

2012-13 Premier League Forwards

2013-14 Premier League Defenders

2013-14 Premier League Midfielders

2013-14 Premier League Forwards

Some of the outliers like Kolarov and Schürrle come down to their classification as a defender and midfielder respectively when in reality they often play in more attacking positions. However, the lists in general seem to provide leaderboards that pass the “eye-test” when it comes to chance creation in the Premier League.

These leaderboards also demonstrate one of the limitations of the statistic. It can only really be used to compare players in the same position. As expected there is a much greater range for defenders than midfielders and forwards, because the denominator becomes steadily higher as we move further up the pitch. This also reflects common sense, there is a bigger range among defenders’ chance creation, who all have different roles in terms of attacking intent, than there is amongst those of forwards whose primary goal is to create chances. For example Kolarov doesn’t create more chances than Suarez despite having a higher wCC+, he just creates more relative to the average defender than Suarez does relative to the average forward.

That being said these leaderboards show how much better Luis Suarez has been than every other forward in the Premier League over the last two years. It is also nice to see this statistic reflect how vital Coutinho was to Liverpool’s 2013-14 season. The other stand out to me was Wayne Rooney’s consistency and impressive numbers over the past two years with wCC+ of 147 and 148. These production numbers fall in line with some of the other work on Statsbomb looking at Wayne Rooney’s career.

Overall I’m pretty pleased with the picture these wCC+ leaderboards give of chance creation over the last two seasons.

Next Steps

I’ve only used the data that I’ve complied to date which is 2012-13 and 2013-14 Premier League data. In order to really understand how widely applicable CC+ and wCC+ is we need to see how it works when applied to other leagues around the world.

The other area where changes could be made is in how the weights are applied. Assist rate and scoring rate are simplistic measures compared to potentially more indicative metrics like expected goals per key pass and expected goals per shot which would require a much richer data set. In the future these weights might give a statistic that better isolates an individual player’s contribution.

This is the first time I’ve ever tried something like this before so I’m open to critiques, suggestions and other tests people think would be applicable to further examine CC+ and wCC+.

 

There has been very little work done in international football analytics compared to the club game . The general consensus is that working with these statistics is much more difficult for a variety of reasons, the most often citied are a small sample size, high turnover of squad composition and varying strengths of schedule.

Looking at the World Cup in isolation the problem of squad turnover is handled as countries are not allowed to change their squad composition once the tournament has begun. Further restricting analysis to the group stage also deals with the strength of schedule problem. Looking solely at the World Cup group stage the only problem becomes the question of sample size.

Leading up to every World Cup journalists may not explicitly use the term sample size, but they all discuss this idea of “getting unlucky” or not “getting the bounces” in the short time frame. This line of inquiry brings up the question, do the best teams really get through the group stage? Or at the very least do the teams that play the best in the opening three matches make it through?

The first question is very difficult to answer for many of the reasons stated above. Going into the World Cup we really don't know who the best teams are. Club form doesn't always translate into national team form and it's difficult to compare underlying talent between teams that have faced very different competition leading up to the tournament. The second question is much easier to deal with, do the teams that play the best in the opening three matches make it through their group?

In order to take a more in-depth look at this question I've chosen simple proxies for playing well and for getting lucky. FIFA does not provide any shot location data, at least none that I've been able to find, so the best available alternative to use for dominance is total shot ratio or TSR. The idea is that over three matches the extent to which a team outshoots their opponents indicates how well they have played. On the flip side I've used PDO as a proxy for luck. These two proxies have often been used elsewhere on Statsbomb.

The data I'm using for this analysis are from the 2010 World Cup. If anyone needs a refresher as to where teams finished in the group stage the final results are all here.

Most teams go into the group stage with the goal of qualifying for the round of sixteen, and the question of getting unlucky only comes up if a team doesn't make it past the group stage, so instead of looking at final position I just look at whether or not the team qualified for the next round.

I use a probit model, which assigns a probability to each team getting out of the group stage given their TSR and PDO throughout the three group stage matches. Each team assigned a probability greater than 0.5 is expected to qualify and each team with a probability less than 0.5 is expected to be eliminated.

The first thing we want to understand is how many of these teams the model accurately assigned a probability of greater than 0.5. Or in other words how many of the teams fates can be described purely using these two statistics.

The complete model accurately anticipates fourteen of the sixteen teams that made the second round. The only two teams that the model did not accurately assign to the round of sixteen were South Korea and Slovakia.

Essentially this means that neither the proxy for skill nor the proxy for luck can explain why these two teams qualified for the round of sixteen. Examining these two teams in context gives a bit more insight. South Korea's below average TSR seems to be down to the curse of the small sample size in which they are disproportionately punished for a 4-1 pummelling by Argentina. As for Slovakia they seem to just have been even luckier to escape a group with Paraguay and Italy than their 1115 PDO indicates.

Now we use two restricted models one which only uses PDO and one which only uses TSR. The model only taking into account PDO correctly predicts eleven of the teams that qualified, whereas the model only taking TSR into account correctly predicts thirteen of the teams that qualified. This suggests that despite the small sample size the quality of performance has a bigger impact on whether or not a team qualifies than luck does.

This becomes more interesting when comparing the teams that the PDO and TSR models differ on. The PDO model correctly predicted two teams to qualify that the TSR model didn't: Slovakia and Mexico. As mentioned above Slovakia is a bit of an outlier since even the combined model didn't anticipate their PDO to be high enough to make up for their poor TSR.

The TSR model correctly predicted four teams to qualify that the PDO model didn't, including the tournament champions Spain.

It is interesting that all of these four teams which made up for their relative “unluckiness” did so with TSRs greater than 0.6. The most telling number here might be Chile's who appear to have been very unlucky with a PDO of 854, but were able to overcome it by significantly outshooting their opponents.

The evidence from the 2010 World Cup suggests that if a team outshoots their opponents throughout the group stage by at least 6 to 4 they should be able to get past so called “unlucky bounces”. The data also show that getting lucky in the group stage and making it to the round of sixteen is not impossible, but it doesn't appear to be quite as prominent as many TV commentators will inevitably claim during this summer's World Cup.